


A Fool You Call Home

by cptsdstars



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, End Game Spoilers, F/M, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 15:15:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17226410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsdstars/pseuds/cptsdstars
Summary: Arthur breathes in quickly, a little tellingly. “Both of you?”“If you’ll have us,” John says.Arthur’s heart skips a few beats, he suddenly needs to lean back on the doorway, head dizzy, overwhelmed.John looks hopeful, gentle. It’s been years since he’s looked at Arthur with such love in his eyes. Abigail looks like she could cry.Arthur nods at before the rest of his body catches up.“I would love that,” he says breathlessly.





	A Fool You Call Home

This is what Arthur knows about his death; it didn’t happen. John, the fool, had come back for him when the shooting had almost stopped. Found him barely breathing, almost dead, and threw him on the back of his horse. John and Abigail had then stolen a wagon, threw him and little Jack in the back and had raced to find a doctor. They spent every last penny they had between the three of them on that doctor, and he said that Arthur wouldn’t be fine, but he’d live, with time. 

Then Arthur woke up here, in a house in Blackwater. 

What Arthur doesn’t know is this; the way John had cried hauling him back to Abigail. The way Jack had sat next to him in the wagon, softly reading what little he knew how to. The way that Abigail had begged him and God and John to please don’t let him die not yet. 

The way they snuck through towns well past midnight to avoid the law. 

The way Jack had cried two days out from Blackwater because he missed Uncle Dutch. 

The way Abigail had begged a friend she hadn’t seen in about a decade to let them stay in her house, her husband’s brother was dying, her son was starving. 

That him surviving was a genuine miracle. 

What Arthur knows now is that he’s alone, his chest feels like he’s been kicked by a horse, and there’s a small flower sitting in a cup of water on the nightstand next to the bed, his journal sitting next to it. 

He tries to sit up, tries to get a good look around the room but he can’t catch his breath. His vision goes blurry and he lays his head back down with a groan. From what he can see from where he’s stuck, he’s not been the only one in here. There’s clothes laid in a pile on the other side of the room, a small bedroll laid out on the floor near it. 

The door to the room opens and Arthur strains his eyes to see who opened it. As he does, what he thinks is a mug crashes to the floor and a woman gasps. 

“Oh, Arthur!” 

It’s Abigail, she’s on top of him a second later, pushing his hair out of his eyes and touching his face gently with shaking hands. 

“You’re awake!” she says, smiling brightly above his head. 

“I— I feel like shit.” His voice doesn’t sound like his voice anymore. It’s soft, weak, hoarse as hell. 

Abigail plants a gentle kiss to his forehead. “I bet you do. Let me go get you some water.”

Arthur doesn’t know a lot of things. He doesn’t know if this moment here, Abigail sitting next to him, petting his hair while Jack talks a mile a minute, is real. He thinks he must have died, for this feels as close to heaven as he thinks he could get. 

He also doesn’t know how long he’s been out. Abigail tells him about three weeks now, but the way Jack grew another inch, the way Abigail holds herself now, it feels more like years. 

Arthur doesn’t know what happened in those three weeks. He doesn’t know how Jack has been quieter, scared out of his mind, barely eating and too young to completely understand what happened to his family. 

He doesn’t know how Abigail and John haven’t been sleeping. Doesn’t know that they’ve been laying up at night on either side of him, listening to his short, ragged breathing and praying. Doesn’t know that they’ve been talking, really talking, about their future. 

Doesn’t know that future includes him.

John arrives back in the house a few hours after Arthur wakes up. Arthur hears a door open downstairs and Abigail runs a gentle hand across his arm before walking out of the room to go meet John. 

A few minutes later, the two of them walk into the room and Arthur turns his head to look at John. The smile on the man’s face is blinding, and he crosses the length of the room quicker than Arthur expects him to. 

“About time you woke up, lazy bones,” John says gently, sitting down on the bed and resting a hand on Arthur’s head, just like Abigail did. 

“You try— you try dyin and we’ll see how long you’re out.” Arthur knows how pathetic his voice sounds, and he can see the worry flicker across John’s face as he talks. 

John runs his rough fingers through Arthur’s hair. “I’m real glad you ain’t dead.” 

“Yeah well,” Arthur says, reaching his hand out to set it on John’s leg, “I got some idiot who can’t follow directions I can thank for that.”

John sighs. “I wasn’t gonna leave you.”

Arthur wants to say a million things, make fun of John for being so thick-headed, ask him why he did it, ask Abigail why she let him, he settles on something he should’ve said first. 

“Thank you.” 

John smiles. Arthur pretends not to notice the funny sorta wet shine in his eyes. 

That night, after Abigail brings him a small dinner, John walks back into the room and toes his boots off. 

“I got some bad news, Morgan,” he laughs. “The three of us have been sharing that bed for a month now. It ain’t gonna stop just cause you’re awake now.” 

Arthur smiles, finds he really doesn’t mind when they climb into bed next to him. Abigail on his right, John on his left. They fall asleep quickly, their shared worry about the man between them finally eased. 

Arthur sits awake, listening to their soft breathing. It’s not the first time he’s shared a bed with either of them, but it is the first time he’s shared a bed with both of them. It feels natural, the way they fit next to him. He’s too tired and he wants to claim he’s still too sick to really mind when John’s hand slips across his side to hold him close. 

It’s another week before Arthur’s strong enough to stand. When he finally does he pads around the house slowly, taking in all the little details. He meets the woman who took the four of them in. Her name is Cassie and her husband’s name is Michael. He thanks her 20 times over. 

Abigail tells him not to leave the house quite yet. He listens. 

He watches Jack play with the neighbor children outside the kitchen window, helps Abigail and Cassie sew up holes in their ragged clothes, offers to do some more chores and Abigail tells him to shush. He draws her in his journal. 

John and Michael leave the house around the same time each morning and Michael comes back before John. John comes back around dark, exhausted and sore. Abigail says he works in the mornings at a ranch outside of town, then when he’s done he and Charles are building them a house. 

“Does Charles know I’m alive?” Arthur asks. 

Abigail looks at him with soft eyes. “We haven’t told anyone. We weren’t sure you were gonna make it.” 

Arthur nods, stares into his mug of coffee. 

“You seem like you still ain’t sure.”

Abigail looks away from him. “If it makes you feel any better I think Sadie knows. That woman’s too smart for her own good.” 

Arthur smiles. His chest aches and he isn’t sure if it’s the sickness or something else. 

Another week passes. They don’t talk about sharing the bed. They don’t need to. 

Arthur mentions one day that maybe he should head out soon, head west again, maybe south to Mexico. John had almost gotten angry, said _absolutely not._

So Arthur gets cabin fever. Starts bugging Abigail for more chores, some honest work, anything to make himself feel useful again. Abigail just shakes her head, tells him if he wants something to do to go take Jack fishing. 

He takes Jack into town instead, buys him a book and some candy with what little money he has left. Jack thanks him on their walk back to the house. Says _I love you lots_ , Uncle Arthur and Arthur feels like his heart is going to burst. 

-

John and Abigail don’t argue anymore. Arthur’s glad, figures the stress of running with the gang got the better of them. He likes listening to them talk now. They talk about nothing; they talk about Jack; they talk about him. 

Arthur doesn’t know they talk about him a lot. In the early morning hours in the kitchen away from a sleeping Arthur and Jack. They talk about _what if we lost him_ and _what if we just ask_ and _what if he says no._

John asks Cassie and Michael one day if they’d take Jack into town for a while, give him a fun day, the boy deserves it. They agree of course, and Abigail gives Jack some money before he kisses her goodbye and walks out the door. 

Arthur leans against a doorway, watching Abigail and John have an entire conversation in silence right in front of him. He knows that it has to do with him. 

John sighs, makes his way over to where Arthur is standing, and stands close to him. His eyes look everywhere but to Arthur’s and he chews at his lip a little, like he’s thinking about what he wants to say next. 

He never does say anything, just leans into Arthur and presses his lips gently against his. Arthur’s heart roars in his ears as he kisses him back and his hands ache to grab hold of John, anywhere. Just to keep him from floating away. 

Arthur suddenly remembers being young, stupid, kissing John like this knee deep in a freezing river, kissing him under the stars a mile away from camp, kissing him for the last time a few days after Abigail had told him she was pregnant. _Abigail._

He shoves John away with more force than he means to. He looks surprised, eyes wide, a little heartbroken. 

“John Marston, you’re a fool,” Arthur breathes, his voice betraying his lack of anger.

John’s stupid face breaks into a smirk. “How so?”

“Kissing me in front of your wife,” Arthur says, refusing to look at Abigail for fear of what he’ll see. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothin,” John says. “I don’t hear my wife complaining.”

Abigail walks up behind him then. She’s not angry. She’s not upset. Arthur looks at her carefully, looking for any indication that he shouldn’t be here. 

He never gets one. Abigail leans close, grabs his cheek in her hand and pulls him in for a kiss as well. She’s soft, gentle, every bit as sweet as Arthur remembers her to be. He feels like he could die here, kissing her, John watching without any bit of anger in his eyes. 

When she pulls away Arthur stands, looking at them, searching for an explanation. 

“I don’t understand,” he says, truthfully. 

Abigail smiles. “We both want you, Arthur.”

Arthur breathes in quickly, a little tellingly. “Both of you?”

“If you’ll have us,” John says. 

Arthur’s heart skips a few beats, he suddenly needs to lean back on the doorway, head dizzy, overwhelmed. 

John looks hopeful, gentle. It’s been years since he’s looked at Arthur with such love in his eyes. Abigail looks like she could cry. 

Arthur nods at before the rest of his body catches up. 

“I would love that,” he says breathlessly. 

They talk for a little longer, about what to do, who to tell, what the story is. They settle on Arthur being John’s brother, living with them to help with the new farm. They know they’ll have to explain it to Jack sooner than later, maybe Sadie, maybe Charles. 

For now, Abigail holds their hands, pulls them up the stairs to their shared bedroom, and pushes Arthur down on top of the bed. 

She crawls up next to him, peppers kisses all along his neck, his chin, his cheeks, his lips. John sits next to them, hand tangling in Arthur’s hair as he watches his wife lean into Arthur’s mouth. He kisses her gently, cherishing every swipe of her lips like he’s never been kissed before. 

Abigail moves back down to lick at his neck, and in her place John leans over to kiss him. He’s rougher, hungrier than she was. His kiss is filled with years of unspoken feelings, tragedies. He kisses Arthur like he’s something he was never allowed to have, which Arthur supposes is true. He kisses Arthur like he thought he was never going to get to again, which Arthur supposes is true as well. 

John and Abigail kiss each other, hands resting on either side of Arthur. He watches them kiss with experience, they know each other’s mouths like their own. Know each other like they want to know him. 

They get to. They strip him down to nothing, worship every inch of his scarred skin together like neither of them have seen it before. Abigail’s hands run down his sides gently, raising gooseflesh as she goes. John kisses his shoulder, his pecs, run his mouth softly over Arthur’s nipple and Arthur lets a small moan escape. John breathes out a chuckle before moving to the other one, running his tongue gently over the sensitive flesh. 

The two of them kiss every inch of him they can, showing rather than telling that yes, they want him. They want him more than he can imagine. Not just in bed either, Abigail had said. For as long as he’d have them. _Forever_ , he’d replied. 

Forever echos over and over in his head as they undress as well, John already flush and hard, Abigail pink-cheeked and breathing heavy. Arthur reaches out, touches her breasts with his rough hands and she lets out a small laugh. 

His hands run down the length of her body and rest on the outside of her thighs, she breathes out beautifully. 

Arthur begins to pull her up towards him. “Please let me—” and before he even finishes she’s straddling his face, and Arthur buries his mouth within her. 

John watches, Arthur can’t see him anymore but he can feel him watching, hear the way his breath hitches at the sight of Abigail, at the sight of Arthur. 

“Touch him,” Abigail breathes out suddenly, and then John is no longer just watching. He’s straddling Arthur’s hips, taking both of them in his hand and rutting against it. Arthur bucks up into the touch, moaning into Abigail. 

The three of them move together silently, like it’s old habits. None of them last very long; John first, spilling over his hand, and while Abigail’s in the middle of teasing him for being so fast Arthur pulls her tighter into his mouth and cuts off her words with a moan. John strokes him faster, and he doesn’t know who comes first, him or Abigail, but they’re both shaking and gasping by the end of it and he feels all boneless when Abigail slides off him and lays at his side. 

John presses their mouths together, tasting _his wife on Arthur’s tongue_ , before settling into place on the other side of Arthur, arms around his chest.

Arthur can’t breathe, but this time he doesn’t want to. This time it doesn’t hurt. This time he’s being suffocated by the two people he loves the most in the world. The two people he never thought would hold him like they are now. 

Arthur isn’t exactly sure how he got here. But he knows it was nothing short of a miracle.


End file.
